POWER & STYLE
Tim Joyce’s seriously sorted ST scooped the ‘SFS Power and Style’ award at Ford Fair last year. With 300-plus bhp coupled to aggressive looks, and everyday useability – we can see why!
The coveted ‘SFS Power and Style’ awards have been running at shows for a few years now. The fiercely fought competition pitches a selection of seriously sorted machinery against each other, and, at Ford Fair last year, Tim Joyce’s well-modified Focus ST took the top honours.
Awards and accolades are frequently given out to the fastest and most powerful machines, but the no-compromise characteristics of these cars often mean they are all but useless at anything other than their chosen discipline. The Power and Style awards are designed to celebrate cars that can do it all. Cars that are just as happy munching motorway miles as they are blasting around a track. Cars that can lay down a respectable quarter-mile time, yet still
pick up the weekly shop on the way home. Cars that are discreet enough to blend in during everyday life, yet unique enough to stand out at a show. In short, the Power and Style awards celebrate cars that can bring a smile to your face every single day!
And it’s this ability to use on a regular basis that first sparked Tim’s interest in the Focus ST. “I wanted a car that combined performance, comfort, and reliability,” remembers Tim, “and there was nothing else, no Vauxhall, no Honda, nothing, that tickled my fancy the way the ST did.” After test driving a Moondust Silver example not only were his initial thoughts confirmed, but he’d also come to a decision on colour too, “I loved the Moondust Silver,” he smiles.
While taking her car in for a service, Tim’s mum noted a Moondust Silver Focus ST for sale at, of all places, the local Honda dealership. Tim went straight round to seal the deal, and less than two hours later the ST was his! The car was immaculate, and only deviated from factory trim with the addition of a dump valve. Tim reckons it used to belong to a member of the ST Owners Club ( despite the stickers being removed) as when the glass misted up you could still see the outline of where they had previously been.
all mapped out
The original plan was to keep the car exactly as the good Ford intended, but that soon slipped. About two months after first getting his hands on the Focus, Tim treated his ST to a Dreamscience Stage 1 remap. “It transformed the car! Everything just felt so much more alive compared to the standard car, and the power delivery was much sharper,” grins Tim.
With such a positive result from the car’s very first mod, it’s hardly surprising to learn that things progressed quickly. Two months later and the ST had the Stage 2 software and a few hardware upgrades, and by the time Tim had owned the Focus for six months it was running a full Stage 3 set-up, including ‘Mod-X’ remap and all the hardware needed to support 311bhp and 358lb/ft!
Tim has only very recently looked to increase the power further, and an Airtec ‘Stage 2’ intercooler, a new recirc valve, and stronger actuator
“It just looked so right with purple wheels”
have all just been fitted. These, along with a tweak to the map saw a few extra ponies unleashed with the ST now producing 317bhp, but it was the immense amount of torque that Tim really noticed – now 385lb/ft of the stuff!
On the way home from the DS workshops, Tim decided to put his newfound torque increase to the test. “It went like a rocket,” he remembers, “but after a while the car started running on four cylinders, and was pouring white steam out of the exhaust.” With the car back at DS, a post-mortem soon revealed that two cylinder liners had cracked! But thankfully, the DS crew had the ST repaired and back together in just a few days, and the rebuilt motor is still pulling strong to this day!
exterior motive
Before this latest episode, however, Tim had been busy continuing to make improvements. First off, the exterior plastics had been painted Gloss Black to clean up the looks. The standard lower grille has also been replaced with a custom item, made to look like the factory trim, but without the number plate recess of the stock part. A genuine Wolf mid-spoiler also found its way onto the car too. Tim recalls: “I actually had a replica spoiler at first, and asked the bodyshop if they would be able to fit it. They said yes, but before they did I wanted to see if I could track down a genuine Wolf spoiler. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found one a few days later – they’re really rare!”
The stock wheels were sprayed Gloss Black to give them a new lease of life, but when Tim’s mate fitted a set of Rota Grids to his Nissan 200SX he wondered if they would look right on the ST too. “I ordered a set in 8.5x18in at first, had them fitted for a couple of months, but then decided the wider 9.5in rims would look better, so I sold the 8.5s and bought another set” laughs Tim.
The new wheels really suited the car, but the way it sat was all wrong. “It was far too high on the lowering springs, so I bought a set of BC Racing coilovers,” he smirks. Tim and a mate then set about fitting them and adjusting the ride height: “We spent a day setting them up, and I still wasn’t happy with the way the rears sat, so we spent another four hours the following weekend tweaking them,” he smiles.
colour me bad
The resulting stance is just about perfect, but Tim did think the silver Rota rims could work a bit harder, so a colour change was on the cards. Initially he thought about a bronze finish, but when he saw Dan Clarke’s ex- Fast Ford featured Focus ST up close at Ford Fair last year, he found the answer – purple. “It just looked so right with purple wheels,” he recalls. As well as the Rota Grids, the lower front splitter was also treated to a few coats of the VW/ Audi shade and provides just enough contrast to
work in harmony with the Moondust Silver bodywork.
Despite having such a tidy motor, Tim still uses his Focus every single day. “I use it for driving to and from work, going to shopping centres (as long it doesn’t have any speed bumps that I can’t get over!), and for weekend thrills,” he explains. All of the mods Tim has made have deliberately kept to the core goal of producing a car that can be used in all circumstances, and can put a smile on his face every single day.
That’s not to say he’s finished with this ST just yet. Oh no, Tim’s already got his eyes on a full Stage 4 upgrade (as soon as a suitable clutch capable of handling such power is fitted) and maybe even another colour change for the wheels. “I’m not sure what I want to do yet,” he hints, “but I want to try something I haven’t seen done before.” Sounds promising – look out for it at Ford Fair!